I went to 93.3's Big Gig on Saturday. My initial response was "it's was too hot", but then the sun went behind the clouds, and it ended up being awesome.

We couldn't find a schedule of events, so we decided to show up pretty close to opening time, around 1pm. The first two hours were local bands only on a small stage. Since the main stage didn't open until 3, we had little choice but to lay on the grass and watch them. They were generally good, but the acoustics on the lawn weren't too great. Someone took a picture of my awesome gear pants without me knowing: Go to http://www.ktcl.com/cc-common/gallery/ Under "recently updated" go to "Big Gig 2009 Listener Photos" and go to Photo 6. That's me, and my pants.

We got up from that spot after a while to see who they were interviewing on "the couch", and then wandered over near a little pond that had omg cute little baby ducklings. I wish I had a camera with a telephoto lens because they were amazing. Of course, I probably couldn't have gotten a camera with a telephoto lens into the concert.

We went into the main stage when they opened. Our seats were better than I had guessed. We were about 11 rows back from the pit, dead center.

Synthetic Elements, Meas and Single File were all awesome, especially for being local. I wasn't too keen on Red Jumpsuit Aparatus and even less on the Spill Canvas. Goldfinger, however was incredibly awesome, they really knew how to rile up a crowd. And All American Rejects was just amazing. Tyson Ritter is one scrawny bitch, but in the way I like it. The tight pants with no underwear didn't hurt the image either. His stage antics got a bit annoying at times, but he was so much fun to watch during the songs.

We didn't stay for Bassnectar. Um, yeah. No.

All in all, it was well worth our money, even though we had to spend more on food because it was such a long event and they didn't allow coolers or outside food.

I spent a good amount of time last night looking through my old livejournal posts, starting on the first day I signed up. It was really interesting... I've matured a lot. I use a lot less silly fangirl speak. I posted a lot of cute things about how I thought I really had a chance with that boy Jake! And I posted a lot about depression.

There were a lot of things I don't even remember happening... like, apparently I got in a car accident that I have no recollection of. How did I forget that? Why can't I remember now?

Anyway, it was really neat, and so strange. Almost seems like a different person - but not.

Oh god, what a weekend. I still haven't recovered, I need another day off or something.

Original plan was to go see Single File and Sugar Ray at the "Taste of Ft Collins" festival thing... then we found out that our friend Gabe from South Dakota had a chance to come visit us because someone from there would be driving down to Colorado Springs and could drop him off in Boulder, so we thought... ok, he can come to this festival thing with us.

Well, then we find out that 3 of our other South Dakotan friends will also be going down to Colorado Springs. Also, they're going to the Renaissance Festival. Also, they bought Gabe a ticket. Also, we can see Single File at the Big Gig next month. Also, I am quite fond of RenFest. Also... oh screw it, we decided to go.

Guh, I miss them so much. Especially Nick and Davy, but everyone else I met up there, too. The Renfest was a ton of fun, everyone was in great spirits and nifty costumes, and we did our best to catch up between it all. I got so many hugs. Managed to sustain a minor injury from a particularly enthusiastic hug.

I also tried on a bunch of corsets, and decided I want one, though probably a Victorian/Steampunk style one rather than a renaissance one. I'm going to have to look into that more.

After that, we had a dinner to attend for a birthday. Had yummy Indian food. Went back to our place to play Arkham Horror, which took way too long and we still didn't finish it.

On Sunday, we decided to meet up with everyone again for lunch. Had a lot of fun again, made it even harder to say goodbye. I was almost tempted to get in their car and go back with them, but then I realized I don't much like South Dakota. Actually, at this point I would be willing to go visit if I had vacation time.

Jake and Gabe wanted to play some disc golf. Turned out to be way to warm for me, so I only made it through 4 holes. I'm still pretty good at putting, but I need to learn to throw sidearm so I can work on getting distance.

Gabe managed to soak his shoes and pants going after a disc, and decided he didn't want to drive back that day (he had driven separate from everyone else). Unfortunately, Jake and I desperately needed eye exams, because my glasses need replacing and the hours for exams are limited. So we left Gabe alone with out Manga collection to get that out of the way. By the time we got back, all three of us were too exhausted to do anything but veg and watch QI.

I really had a blast the whole weekend, but now I'm both exhausted and missing everyone again. I keep trying to convince people to move here, especially the people who have grown to hate South Dakota, but they all have excuses that really make me think they aren't really considering what's important to them.

At the very least, I need to make a point of keeping in touch better. I've been pretty lax on that the past year.

My hair is getting long again. I'm not sure if I should get it cut up cute or grow it out long again. I've had this dilemma the last 3 or so haircuts, so I usually get it cut, but only a bit. I definitely need another cut because the shape at the bottom is weird, but how short?

OMG I'm about to play the Sims 3!

Merf. The weekend went by fast.

On Saturday I went to the New Vista graduation slash reunion slash Rona's retirement party. A lot less peopel showed up than I thought would, but it was great to see the people I did see.

Rona and Diana were happy to see me, but neither of them could remember my name. Sadface. Pfouts walked by me on his way out without saying hi or anything. Pfft. I'll have to remember to stop by in the fall some time. Talked to Yvette and Spetzler though.

Seeing Cody was awkward, of course, but everyone else was fantastic. They all seem to be doing well. New Vista seems to have spawned a lot of teachers. Sean's kid is adorable. I talked to Loren for a long time. A bunch of people left to eat at the Southern Sun and I joined them later. Nobody at the Southern Sun seemed to want to take my order for food, so I decided not to push the issue and didn't order any, I didn't want to give them any money. So Loren and I went to Tokyo Joe's after, and talked more. Jake met up with us (he hadn't come with me, he had other plans that day). He was tired and out of it and we were talking about people he didn't know, so we departed. I need to keep in touch with Loren, though, it was really nice taking to him again.

Sunday we did errands, went to Anime club to watch Kuroshitsuji, wich confuses me so much after reading the manga, and went hom to watch 6 episodes of QI. God I love that show. Stephen Fry and Alan Davies are my RPS OTP. <3

Merf. I want to upgrade Romeo to a type 3 body. I love the posability. But, of course, I'd have to swap out the whole doll since his old head wouldn't work on the new type body. I would really want to sell then buy the new one right away so he's not gone long. I'm pretty attached to him.

But even with the turn around time of ordering a brand new doll, he'd be away for a while. So then I start thinking if he's already going to be gone a bit, I could wait and use the money to get something I want, like a fancy DSLR, and then save up to buy him again later.

I dunno.

I really want a DSLR though. I've started to notice that all the great things I learned about real photography beyond composition are floating out of my brain, and I'd love to learn again. My little camera is pretty good, but it fails utterly in low light (more than it should), and I'm missing being able to play with depth of field. At the same time, I actually want a different point-and-shoot camera, too. I want one that's extra flat, to fit in my purse. It doesn't cost much at all to get one that would perform as well as the one I have, but fit in half the space.

Also, i'm bad at saving up for things.

For Julia: http://deliciousdesignleague.com/posters/?index=2

Man, remember back when the iMac came out, and it had no floppy drive and everybody was like "Wtf?" And when you had a small file to give to someone, but burning a whole CD for it was such a WASTE?

Now it's just "Yeah, lemme just grab my jump drive and get that file from you."

I dunno, it's just amusing me that we were so concerned about floppies once. I don't know if I've even seen a floppy disc in about a year now.

Ugh. I cut my finger on Saturday. I did it stupidly, so I'm not going to go into how it happened. But it's right on the tip of my finger so it hurts to type or pretty much do... anything. I kept it safe yesterday using superglue, and that worked really well, but I tried putting a bandaid on it today and that was just horrible, so I took it off, but I don't have any superglue with me to fix it back up.

I've also recently gotten into Kuroshitsuji. I'm really loving it. I haven't been so much into a specific series in a long time. Probably not since Fruits Basket, I think. There have been plenty I've liked, but none I've been interested in the fandom for. So that's exciting! I felt like a bit of a failure as a self-proclaimed otaku for just being like "Sure, I like some stuff, I guess..." I thought maybe I'd just grown up, but I'm so wibbly in love with this series that obviously that wasn't the case.

I also went ahead and uploaded a bunch of random usericons I had on my computer, I had totally forgotten about a lot of them, like the Leonard Nemoy Bilbo Baggins ones. What was I thinking when I made those? I dunno, but now they seem oddly appropriate, like I should make a post about Star Trek using one XD

I need to make some sort of custom mood theme, next.

I decided to get a paid account here at LiveJournal. Probably a silly expense, since I post so little, but I wanted more usericons for when I post comments on other people's entries. Kinda lame, huh? Maybe it will encourage me to post more.

As I twittered last night, I saw Flight of the Conchords at Red Rocks. It was quite amazing. I'd never been to a concert there before, it's so beautiful. The venue totally had Bret & Jemaine intimidated, it seemed that they'd never played to an audience so large before. They'd been doing 2000-3000 seat venues so far this tour, and Red Rocks had sold out it's 9500 seats. Arj Barker (Dave from the show) did some stand up comedy before they played. He was great, so angry, and so so high.

This last week I've kept myself really busy, and a little sleep deprived, and I'm really proud of myself for it. The doll company Bambicrony was holding a contest for Photography, Photostories, Costuming and Fan Art. I entered all but the Photostory contest. The entries are here but you have to have an account with them to see the full size images or comment. I spent probably at least 10 hours working on my Fan Art piece (seen here). I'm really proud of making myself work on something so complicated, I really hope the judges like my piece, and especially people who view it, since comments count for half, too. Here's my costume and photo entries, too. I'd love to get recognition on my fan art piece the most, but looking at the other entries, I think my photo entry might have the best chance. I just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best now, though. The prizes are really good, but I'm trying to keep myself from planning what I would do with it if I won.

I have a doll that should be shipping today (it's tomorrow already in Korea), and should be here by Friday if it does. It's a Dollfactory Dalsoo that Julia and Vit got me for my birthday. I'm so excited, I've wanted one for a long time, but usually skipped over it for a different doll.

I also have a Soom Glot on the way, but they've got that scheduled to ship in early August. I knew the wait would be long, but I wasn't expecting August, so that's getting to be hard.

Now, I'm going back to more Plants vs. Zombies.